Mel Gibson, the Hollywood star who directed "The Passion of the Christ," says the case of Terri Schiavo is a modern-day crucifixion with a pro-death agenda driving it.

"It's just completely wrong to deprive this poor woman of food and water," Gibson said on Sean Hannity's national radio show yesterday. "It's a prolonged and cruel execution."

Gibson continues contact with the family of the brain-injured Florida woman who has been starving since her feeding tube was removed by court order March 18.

"I'm appalled and stunned that we've gotten to this," Gibson said. "I just sit here watching this whole scenario play out in front of me with my mouth hanging wide open, that our country has come to this. I think it's really a dark, black day. And I think that this final appeal – it's too little too late. It's an attempt [by] the powers that be to sort of really just cover their a-- later on so they can say we tried, but in fact, they're not trying real hard. ...

"What happened to just being a human being, you know? It's nothing more than state-sanctioned murder. All the big guys, they all have their hands tied up by some tinhorn judge down there. Come on, when they want to whip a judge, they got no problem doing that. Look what they did to [Ten Commandments proponent Roy Moore] in a heartbeat. So they can do it if they want. They just don't want to."

Gibson, whose films include the "Mad Max" trilogy, "Braveheart," "The Patriot," and the "Lethal Weapon" series, acknowledges Schiavo has "some brain damage," but adds "she's not a vegetable," noting the debate over whether or not she's in a persistent vegetative state is not resolved.

"It hasn't had a fair going-over yet, so to just go right to this crucifixion of this woman ... even a dog has more rights. You do this to an animal, they'll lock you up, but this is a human being we're doing this to."

Calling it completely merciless, Gibson said there's a pro-death agenda being pushed on the public with this case.

"It's a precedent that they set," he said. "We may be able to save a few Social Security dollars later on down the track simply by pulling the plug on the infirmed or the disabled or the aged. It's the inevitability of gradualism. ... There is an agenda, and people say 'Well, they can't all be in it together,' but there's no other way to explain this behavior."

For all the ugliness Gibson sees in the starvation of Schiavo, he warned, "We'll see worse than this."

When Hannity pointed out the case is a defining moment for society, Gibson responded, "A lot depends on it. If she does travel into the next dimension, hopefully it will mean something and we'll learn from it, and something positive will come from it. It's just a terrible tragedy to watch state-sanctioned murder."